Here it was. My hands twisted into my robe. I couldn’t outright refuse. When Lord Hosokawa settled back, releasing me, my eyes darted over his shoulder, around the pines, at the perfect fold of his obi, anywhere but at the jarring sight of trembling hope on the face of a man I called enemy.
“We shall see,” I said. I bowed. Other audience members had risen from their seats, heading towards our copse to heed the call of nature. Time to leave.
Put your trust in the kami. Hosokawa’s voice, speaking in the depths of me like an indwelling kami. The spirits seek a deeper union than a lordling’s passing fancy.
I did not acknowledge his words. I crept back to my seat at Kazue’s side. Zeami had changed back into the old woman. It was still an amazing display, but the chanting and posturing no longer held my attention. In a haze of sour wine and perfumed robes, a memory came over me—the overwhelming heat of Asama-yama’s indwelling, burning my insides to purifying ash, filling me so completely that I had no place left for doubts or shame or worries or wanting. Only the terrible anger of the kami at the death Norinaga and Ashikaga brought with their armies, and a yearning for life.
Over and over, the words to my mother’s warding song played themselves behind my tightly locked lips—the song that had risen from my depths the first time Whispering Brook indwelled, forcing the fox soldiers attacking Ashikaga in the woods to keep their animal shapes.
From this murky world I long for release,
I run to hide at the mountains’ deepest recesses;
But even there I hear the stag’s cry.
From this world there is nowhere to escape.
Hosokawa’s parting words lingered like a sore spot, throbbing in a dark corner of my mind.
The play finally ended and the nobles in the audience rose, giving gruff cries of appreciation. Kazue gave me one glance and then took off towards the tents where refreshments were laid out. I looked around, unsure of where to go in the milling crowd. Lord Hojo and Yoshikazu escorted the Daimyo towards another gaggle of nobles wearing the tall linen black hats of courtiers. There was no sign of Ashikaga.
I pushed my way through the chattering knots of attendants and handmaidens, trailing over-loud whispers in my wake. I caught a glimpse of familiar leather armor slipping around the back of the stage. Ashikaga. A pair of youths with short-shorn hair dressed in plain robes stood guard by the entrance to a cloth pavilion.
The performers’ tent.
Ashikaga was going to talk to Zeami? About the box of letters? Or the yurei?
My lordling wasn’t the only one who could turn up in awkward situations.
The youths moved to block me when I moved toward the pavilion. I mumbled something about Lord Ashikaga needing me. They exchanged a puzzled glance, but let me through.
I stepped inside and immediately knelt in the darkness. A lantern cast a faint glow around the tent. Zeami sat on a stool in front of a table laden with pots of thick, white paste and hair oils. He measured my silent, waiting form with a glance, and then turned back to my lordling.
Ashikaga stood before him in the wide-legged stance used in grappling bouts with the guards. “What possible reason could she have had to entrust you with that box?”
Zeami tilted his head, looking up at Ashikaga through lowered lashes. “Is it so hard to believe that we were friends?”
“You were her rival.”
“We loved the same man, a man who very rarely came to Kyoto. Over the years mutual animosity became mutual commiseration.”
Ashikaga’s hands made fists. “You weren’t two court wives. The play is over, sir. The mask is off. I would appreciate plain speaking.”
“Yoshimitsu spoke often of your stubbornness in his letters. My lord, I am not your mother’s enemy, nor yours. There are many loyalties made and broken in court. My loyalty to Yoshimitsu holds unbroken all these years.”
“Loyalty?” Ashikaga gave a kind of sobbing laugh.
Zeami straightened like a bent willow limb whipping back into place. Legs pressed together on a diagonal broke apart, setting his feet flat on the ground. The movement cut through the spell of softness he’d woven with his polite intonation. “You have lived, what, seventeen summers? Tucked away in the hinterlands? Do not presume.”
Ashikaga startled forward at the rough inflection of Zeami’s tone. So tightly wound, I feared Tiger pride would lash out.
But Kyo no Miyako was changing my lordling as well. With a long exhalation, Ashikaga settled back in a taunting, relaxed posture that said Zeami was no more threat than a ladybug. A thin layer of bravado didn’t quite cover the tight jaw and rapidly beating pulse at my lordling’s temples. Zeami Motokiyo had both the ear of the court and knowledge of my lordling’s deepest self—a bare blade held at Ashikaga’s throat. Any rash move, and my lordling would be sliced wide open.
“You are a master of illusion,” said Ashikaga. “Do you even know where your true loyalty rests?”
“At the end of the day, my rigorous discipline is practiced to evoke the flowering of fascination and awe in my audience. A form of entertainment, if you will. My artifice is transparent. I do not hide what I am. There is no danger I will lose my own heart.”
Ashikaga spread arms into a wide arc. “I am as you see me. There is no disharmony in my way of life. A Zen practitioner like yourself must understand how actions form the core of any truth. We are as we do.”
“Don’t preach doctrine to a teacher,” said Zeami. “Lady Ashikaga was clever, but she did not understand the mechanics of transformation. Yoshimitsu only cared that he had another son to replace the one he lost to Kyoto. Who do you think taught them about yarrow’s effect on the female body? Or the tricks in handling public baths? The subtle ways clothing can be used to give off desired impressions is the art of an actor, not a warrior. Did you never question how the Daimyo became so conversant with aesthetics?”
Ashikaga’s eyes widened. Zeami smiled, crossed his legs, and picked up a damp cloth. Traces of white paste, still smearing his hairline, turned to bare skin as the actor finished removing the last signs of the young girl he’d played on the stage.
I pressed crossed palms hard onto the tops of my thighs. Every instinct cried at me to rise and drag Ashikaga from this place. Whether Zeami was friend or foe, it did not matter. His words clipped holes in Ashikaga as precisely as a paper-cutting artist using scissors.
“Lord Ashikaga is more than just what the Lord Daimyo made him.” The words darted off my tongue before I could contain them. Ashikaga flashed me a look that rasped over my skin like a chestnut husk.
Zeami laughed softly. “Ashikaga Han does breed fierce Tigers. Don’t worry, your master will escape this audience with nothing more painful than certain truths.”
“Why?” said Ashikaga in her nighttime, true voice. The one not pitched intentionally low. “Why would you agree to hold that box of letters for your rival?”
“Your cleverness must be exaggerated,” said Zeami, giving a practiced little sigh. “How could I refuse such a last request?”
“You knew she was going to die?”
“No,” said Zeami. “She told me of her intention to try the wara ningyo curse. A dangerous risk, entangling herself in desire, calling upon heathen evils instead of contenting herself with the Way of things.”
“You sit there and talk of loyalty, yet you allowed my mother to practice the vilest of curses on the Daimyo!” Ashikaga’s hands shook, voice so high on the last words that anyone overhearing outside couldn’t but know they were uttered by a person with a female throat.
Zeami turned swiftly, slicing Ashikaga’s righteous anger into thin ribbons with a look of utter disgust. “Idiot youth, didn’t I just finish telling you of her love?”
“The curse wasn’t
for the Daimyo?”
“What was Yoshimitsu thinking, keeping you so insulated from court life?”
Ashikaga fairly buzzed with anger, like a hive of angry wasps lived inside that slender middle. I remembered Lord Hojo’s pointed remarks about the other Ashikagas, Moto-something, and chafing at second place. “The cadet branch Ashikagas,” I said quietly.
The two bristled at each other as if nothing had been said, but slowly, slowly, Ashikaga regained control. “Surely things weren’t so bad here that my mother felt the wara ningyo curse was the only way to protect Yoshikazu from Kyoto Ashikagas?”
“Lady Ashikaga became privy to damning information.”
“She spied on Ashikaga Motofuji?”
Zeami formed his features into a caricature of an old man’s leer. Did this man ever show his true face? “Lady Ashikaga spent quite a lot of time in Lord Motofuji’s company.”
Ashikaga lunged forward, gripping the open collar of Zeami’s robe and twisting it tightly against the other man’s throat. My lordling pulled the unresisting actor to his feet. “You play the careless courtier game well, sir. But do not presume that I will react like a court dandy to your innuendos and barbs.”
I surged to my knees and scrambled the few steps to Ashikaga. Cupping one of my lordling’s fists in both hands, I pried at bloodless-white fingers. Ashikaga let loose a long stream of male curses, and then with another of those sobbing laughs, flung Zeami back to his stool.
Such a severe a reaction for a woman Ashikaga could hardly have known. Zeami could read my lordling as easily as a music score. This was a waste. Whatever my lordling had hoped to gain from confronting Zeami about Lady Ashikaga’s box of letters, it wasn’t worth this.
“Calm down, little Tiger. Recall I told your minder here there would be painful truths? Lady Ashikaga came to me with her letters and bid me give it to you if she should die in the next months—suddenly.”
“And she did,” said my lordling, showing Zeami only a bowed profile. “Father’s silence on how made me suspect it was a suicide.”
I stepped back, but the hand hidden from Zeami twisted into the cloth of my sleeve, holding me in place. “Let us leave,” I whispered.
“Not yet,” said Ashikaga.
“The next week your mother was found dead at Ashikaga Residence. Alone, in her room.”
“Murdered,” said Ashikaga.
“A truly suspicious death,” said Zeami. He crossed his legs. “There is something in the box of letters she wanted you to know. Something she couldn’t trust to anyone else.”
“You had Lady Ashikaga’s box of letters and refrained from reading them?”
Zeami gave an amused huff. “Maybe not such an idiot after all.” He curled his nails into his palms and studied them as if his manicure was more important than admitting he’d broken Lady Ashikaga’s trust. “I read nothing too . . . surprising in those letters. But maybe you can discover something I could not.”
“There is nothing he can tell you, my Lord. Won’t your father and brother wonder where you have gone?” I barely mouthed the words, but Zeami arched an eyebrow.
“Your father is most likely on his way here as we speak,” said Zeami. “He does like to offer congratulations in a personal manner.” The subdued, coy voice was back, Zeami slipping into his next role.
All of a sudden I understood Uesugi-san’s animosity towards me. This cultured, beautiful man with his courtly vocabulary made Ashikaga twist on a pike with just words. It was all I could do to stand there and not grab his robe myself to shake him as I did Little Brother when he broke one of Father’s bowls. Knowing Ashikaga’s secret meant he could use those same words to give my lordling mortal wounds. It felt wrong for this court actor, who could don personalities—each one as fleeting as a sun break during the rainy season—to know what Ashikaga had revealed to me under moonlight in the Charcoal Maker’s hut. As if somehow Zeami’s knowledge lessened the importance of Ashikaga entrusting the secret to me.
Ashikaga made a courtly bow, withdrawing behind a bland expression. “Forgive me for taking up so much of your valuable time.”
“I am the noble Ashikaga family’s servant.”
My lordling flew out of the tent, tugging me along, muttering harsh words, fingers digging into my flesh in a way likely to leave a bruise. We made our way into the same copse of trees where I’d spoken with Hosokawa. Under the low-hanging branches of a fragrant pine, Ashikaga stopped, gripping me at the elbows. Spots of red appeared high on pale cheeks.
I knew that look. Ah, now came the punishment for barging into Zeami’s tent. I raised my chin. If I hadn’t followed Ashikaga in there, my lordling might have overstepped his place with Zeami. Roughing up the actor would hardly have helped.
“What do you think you were doing in there!” Ashikaga gave me the shaking I’d wanted to give Zeami. I bore it for a short moment, and then put my hand on my lordling’s chest just over the embroidered crest.
“Keeping you from doing something you’d regret.”
Ashikaga froze. “Have I really come to this? Needing Tiger Lily to steer me straight?”
I bit my lip against the retort sharpening itself on my tongue.
The slight movement focused Ashikaga’s attention.
My lordling heaved me in close, mouth bare inches from mine, the sour smell of wine and tang of pickles fouling the clean bite of pine. “Who are you to decide what I would regret?”
“No one,” I answered, riding the reckless wave I’d felt asking Hosokawa for help. My voice kept steady despite the queasy thrill rippling through my insides. I balanced at the top of some cliff. “Nobody of any importance at all.”
“A sudden avalanche of people are trying to protect me,” said Ashikaga. “That is not what I want from you.”
I looked up at my lordling from underneath lowered lashes, trying to mimic Zeami’s perfect coyness. “What is it you want from me, then, my lord?”
Ashikaga closed the distance between us in a heartbeat, crushing my arms into the hard leather armor, mouth capturing mine. Sour, sour taste, more than just pickles and wine. This sourness welled up from the back of my throat. Mashing lips to mine, and then harshly forcing them open. Teeth scraped my upper lip. I tasted blood. I gave a surprised yelp, and Ashikaga’s hands rose to twist into my hair. A moment ago I’d played coy. My lordling’s hands on my arm awakened that vibrating connection I felt deep in my belly—as if I stood too close to the monks ringing the great, temple bell. But this rough press, this mindless demand, soured the sweetness.
I shoved hard against Ashikaga’s chest.
I was released abruptly. My back banged hard into the tree trunk behind me, ridged bark scraping through the thin fabric of my robe. Ashikaga leaned over, hands propped on knees, back heaving like we’d reached the end of a footrace.
I put the back of my hand to my mouth, and it came away marked with a thin streak of blood. Ashikaga’s eyes widened, the clear, pure darkness filming over with intense emotion. I stood there, letting my lordling see. Then I adjusted my obi, pulling the robe down where it had bunched up, straightening my collar.
Ashikaga swallowed several times. “Lily, I—”
“My lord,” I said, giving a bow held to the most humble length a handmaiden might offer. “I shall go find Uesugi-san and tell him the performance is over.” For the first time since I’d found my lordling, bleeding alone in the Ashikaga forest, I turned my back on a clearly troubled Ashikaga Yoshinori and walked away.
Chapter Eleven
* * *
THE WALK BACK to Ashikaga Residence was blessedly silent. The late hour meant most of the goodwives and masters of the crafthouses lining the street had their curtains tied up, closed for business. Men in pairs and trios outside teahouses gave ou
r procession a wide berth. Kazue was just as happy as I to refrain from speaking. She kept her nose in the air the entire way, maintaining a pace that kept her slightly in front of me.
Little Turtle instantly saw the swelling on my lip when I entered our room. Her mouth made a silent oh, and went through a quick series of expressions starting with surprise and ending with disappointment.
“Nothing a good night’s rest won’t make better in the morning, yes?” she said. She ran interference with the other handmaidens and Beautiful, allowing me a quick escape into my bedroll. Her open trunk, full of things packed for the trip, stood next to her own bedroll, a stark reminder of impending loss. Little Turtle was the only person here I could unreservedly call friend. Not just here. Even back home I’d never spoken to another girl my age before like this—as if I weren’t keeping them from something more important.
Closing my eyes brought a surge of wet heat. Sleep eluded me for a long while.
The next morning I was slated for general laundry duty alongside some of the local handmaidens. Kazue was not among them, but one of the others made it a point to make sure I overheard her talking to her friend about how Kazue had been especially requested to attend the young Lord Ashikaga this morning. I bent my back to the task of pulling up water heated in the wooden bathtub to dump into big washbasins. Another girl then used a wooden bat to stir the linens. Beautiful had the unluckier task of pulling dripping, steaming cloth from the tubs to hang between the cherry trees. Her hands were wrinkled and reddened.
“The Chamberlain says there is talk that the Lord Deputy of Kyoto snubbed Zeami’s performance last night. You were there, what did you see?” Beautiful eyed me expectantly.
“The only nobles I recognized were our own, Lord Yoshikazu, and the lords Hosokawa and Hojo.”
The washbasin handmaiden, gave a little snicker. “Lord Hojo is a vassal back up North country, right?”
The Straw Doll Cries at Midnight Page 13
